Latest / Pod Save America / The Gospel According to Trump

Transcript

The Gospel According to Trump · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is brought to you by SimpliSafe. Between
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: the news cycle and daily to-do lists, your brain probably
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: already has too many tabs open. Your home security system
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be one of them. With SimpliSafe, you can easily
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: customize the system that's right for your home at simplisafe.com,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and it ships to your door in a few days.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: With app-guided setup and no drilling required, you can install
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: and arm your system in under an hour. No need
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: to wait around for a technician appointment. It's not just
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: a camera. It's a comprehensive ecosystem of sensors, cameras for
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: inside and out, and 24-7 professional monitoring. In the event
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: of a break-in, fire, or flood, SimpliSafe's agents are ready
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: to take action. There are no long-term contracts or hidden
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: cancellation fees. SimpliSafe earns your business by keeping you safe,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: not by trapping you in a contract. Get 24-7 monitoring
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: for a fraction of what the traditional brands charge. Love it,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: take it away.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: I set up a SimpliSafe home security system. Boy, it
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: was easy to do. And I customized it, and then
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: it comes, and you set it up in a matter
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: of minutes. It's really intuitive, and then the app is
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: really great. The customer support is very reliable, and it
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: just gives you peace of mind.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: How about that? We've partnered with SimpliSafe to offer an
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: exclusive discount to our listeners. Right now, you can get
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: 50% off your new system by visiting simplisafe.com slash crooked.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: That's half off. It's simplisafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: On today's show, the Holy War rolls on. Trump is
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: still fighting with the Pope.
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: J.D.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Vance is lecturing the Holy Father about theology. And Pete
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Hegseth is leading the troops in prayer using a fake
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Bible quote from Pulp Fiction. We'll get into all of that,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: as well as the latest with Trump's other war in Iran, which,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: according to Trump, is either over or just getting started,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: sometimes in the same sentence. We'll talk about Republicans in
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Congress hitting the panic button on the, quote, nonsense coming
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: out of Trump's mouth. And RFK Jr. 's trip to
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Capitol Hill, where TMZ asked him about a newly surfaced
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: diary entry in which he writes about cutting the penis
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: off of a dead raccoon to, quote, study it later.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: That's what she said?
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: I guess. I don't know. Then... Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: one of the Democrats in the primary for the open
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Senate seat there, talks with Tommy about the race and
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: dealing with the ICE occupation of her state. Quick reminder
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: before we start, please consider becoming a Crooked Media subscriber
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: if you haven't already so that you don't miss out
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: on any of the fresh, fresh content we're putting out
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: just for Friends of the Pod. Subscribers get our new
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: extra episode of Pod Save America called Pod Save America
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Only Friends. Other subscriber-only shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: How's the new episode? What did you guys talk about
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: this week?
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: We talked about the impact of Eric Swalwell's campaign imploding
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: on the California governance race and whether Democrats are still
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: at risk of getting locked out of the top two spots.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: And I guess the answer is maybe.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: The answer is.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Everyone's got to subscribe and tune into Polar Coaster, but... Yeah, yeah.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, let's not.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: Let's not give the milk away for free here.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I will say, and I'm willing to do this, I
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: was very... I was very forward leaning on Tuesday's pod
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: being like, no, I had read the message box. And
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: I think that the math is it's, I think now
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: that Swalwell dropped out and Trump endorsed Steve Hilton, we're
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: okay now. And Tommy's like, I don't know. I talked
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: to some people and they're still a little worried. And
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: I was like, Hmm. And now Tommy was right.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: No, I think, I think like, this is not the
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: topic of this pod, but I think that we, there's,
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: there's still a risk. Of course. I think the risk
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: is dramatically less than it was prior to both the
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Trump endorsement of Steve Hilton and, Eric Swalwell dropping out.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: And I will not ask you why because everyone's got
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: to go subscribe to Friends of the Pod so you
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: can go listen to Polar Coaster and all of our
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: other good stuff. You also get access to all of
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: our excellent sub-stack newsletters like Pod Save America Open Tabs,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: ad-free episodes of all your favorite Crooked pods, and you
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: get to feel good about supporting an independent pro-democracy media outlet.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: What more could you ask for? Head to crooked.com slash
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: friends and subscribe. All right, Dan, let's get to the news.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: The MAGA attack on the Catholic Church has somehow intensified
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: since President Trump called the Holy Father weak on crime
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: and warned the first American pontiff that he better, quote,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: get his act together. Our deeply Christian Speaker of the
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: House and Catholic Vice President faced with a choice between
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: God and Trump. did exactly what you imagined they'd do.
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: I think that it's important, in the same way that
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: it's important for the Vice President of the United States
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy,
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: I think it's very, very important for the Pope to
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: be careful when he talks about matters of theology.
• 4:46
  Speaker 6: I think he said several days back that Something about
• 4:49
  Speaker 6: those who engage in war, you know, that Jesus doesn't
• 4:51
  Speaker 6: hear their prayers or something. You know, it is a
• 4:54
  Speaker 6: very well-settled matter of Christian theology. There's something called the
• 4:58
  Speaker 6: just war doctrine. There's a time to every purpose under.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: It's just Catholic-splaining to the Pope.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's just so much to say about this.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: So much to say.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: The absolute arrogance of J.D. Vance to lecture the Pope
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: on when it is appropriate to talk about theology and
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: to have the audacity to compare... The importance of his
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: words as the mostly powerless vice president of the United
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: States whose job is to attend funerals to the pope
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: is nuts. It's just it's absolutely– there are so many
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: ways to– just like there are so many ways for J.D.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: Vance to address this, and he chose the absolute worst one.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: He just became a Catholic like five minutes ago.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: John, does he have a book coming out?
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, he does have a book coming out.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: What is that book about, John?
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: This is probably going to do wonders for his book sales,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I guess. That book is about his conversion to Catholicism,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: which did happen seven years ago. The Pope, who is
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: really just the direct descendant really from Jesus Christ himself
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: and Peter, the first Pope of the church in Catholic doctrine,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: you know, what he says, that's sort of been church
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: doctrine for a couple thousand years, couple thousand, since the
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: calendar changed over from BC to AD, that's how long
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: the Pope's going. And J.D. Vance has about seven years
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: and a fucking book under his belt. So that's what,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: he went on to say, because the full quote was crazy,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: which couldn't, we didn't have time for it all in
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: the clip, but He said, and I think that one
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: of these issues here is that there has been, if
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: you're going to opine on matters of theology, you've got
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: to be careful. You've got to make sure it's anchored
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: in the truth. And that's one of the things that
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: I try to do. And it's certainly something I would
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: expect from the clergy, whether they're Catholic or Protestant. This
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: is the tell, by the way, that he is a
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: new Catholic because you don't just refer to the Pope
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: as part of the clergy. He's the pontiff. He's the
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: holy father. He is the bishop of Rome.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: It's like there is the theological incorrectness in what he's saying.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: And then there's just the political stupidity of it all.
• 7:09
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: It's like you look like an asshole if you were
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: telling the pope when they can talk about theology. You'd
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: sound insane.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Before we move on from Vance, because I know there's
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: a lot more to talk about, the U.S. Catholic bishops
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: did release a statement in response to Vance. And first
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: of all, they talk about just war theory. This is
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: also a response to Mike Johnson, I guess, who's decided
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: to riff on just war theory. And they said a
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: constant tenet of the thousand-year-old just war theory is that
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: a nation can only legitimately take up the sword in
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: self-defense once all peace efforts have failed. It must be
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: a defense against another who actively wages war. which is
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: what the Holy Father actually said, quote, he does not
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: listen to the prayers of those who wage war. And then,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: this was the best line, when Pope Leo speaks as
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: supreme pastor of the universal church, he is not merely
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: offering opinions on theology, he is preaching the gospel and
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: exercising his ministry as the vicar of Christ.
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: And like, look, it's been a long time since I
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: have delved into my Jesuit education. But, Mike Johnson doesn't
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: even understand just war theory because there's two parts of it.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: There is the just war and why you go to war,
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: which is what the bishops are about there. And then
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: there is justice and how you conduct the war. And
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: that's exactly what the Pope is talking about here because
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: the president of the United States threatened, regardless of what
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: the original reason for going to war was, even if
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: there was a just reason for going to war, it
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: is not a just war if one of the possible
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: mechanisms for winning that war is the genocide of Of
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: a country of 92 million people. Yeah. That you were
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: going to wipe an entire country, all the civilians, all
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: the women, the children, the families, everyone else off the
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: face of the planet in service of trying to win
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: that war. That is not a just war. And that
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: is why the Pope spoke out.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: And someone shouted at J.D. Vance at that event, Jesus
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: doesn't support genocide. And J.D. Vance did allow because he
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: is Uh, he's a, he's a caring, thoughtful man. He said,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Oh no, yes, I agree. Jesus is not for genocide.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: So thank you. Thank you, uh, teacher. Um, not to
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: be outdone by his colleagues, um, holy warrior, Pete Hegseth, uh,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: who often sounds like he turned a little too much
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: water into wine before his public appearances. Um, he, uh,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: he compared the media's coverage of the Iran war Thursday
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: morning to a Jewish religious sect that persecuted Jesus. Let's listen.
• 9:43
  Speaker 8: Jesus entered a synagogue and healed a man with a
• 9:46
  Speaker 8: withered hand. The Pharisees came to watch, but their hearts
• 9:51
  Speaker 8: were hardened. Even though they witnessed a literal miracle.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: It didn't matter.
• 9:57
  Speaker 8: They were only there to explain away the goodness in.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Pursuit of their agenda.
• 10:03
  Speaker 9: Our press are just like these Pharisees.
• 10:06
  Speaker 8: Your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds
• 10:11
  Speaker 8: you from the brilliance of our American warriors.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: It doesn't even make sense as an analogy, as blasphemous
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: as it is. Like, so our military is Jesus in
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: this scenario? And the Iran war.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: Is- No, no, Trump is Jesus.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Trump is Jesus, right. Trump is Jesus.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: And Trump bombing Iran is healing the sick.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes.
• 10:43
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: And because they hate Jesus so much, they can't recognize, i.e.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: hate Trump, they cannot recognize the brilliance of our troops.
• 10:51
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know where the troops fit into this.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: I guess they're the healing.
• 10:55
  Speaker 7: Who knows?
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: Not really clear.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Who knows? I wouldn't think too hard on it.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: None of the press coverage is against the troops.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: No, of course it's not. Press coverage is just covering
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: a war. Covering a war that is stupid.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: No one is even suggesting that the military has not
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: done a very good job of executing... the goals that
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: were given to them. They just think the war is
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: stupid and the goals were stupid.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What would be like, what would be like Jesus
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: healing person in the temple? Would it be when we
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: blew up a school in Southern Iran and, and killed
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: a couple hundred children? Is that, is that, is that
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: analogous to, to the story of the Pharisees and Jesus?
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It's just like, what is, what is he doing?
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: And there's just this other element of this, which is,
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: this is like, now we're getting into Ben Tommy nerddom, but,
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: The audience for this, in Pete Hex's mind, is Donald
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Trump and no one else.
• 11:47
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: But the audience, when the Secretary of Defense speaks during
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: a war, is not just the American public. It's the world.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: And when you're at war with a Muslim nation, to
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: constantly be using religious, Christian religious imagery to do it,
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: you are.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: That is so counterproductive because it feeds the suggestion that
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: can be weaponized against the United States that this is
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: a religious war. It's a war on Islam, which is
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: a tool that was used during post 9-11, the Iraq
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: war by Al-Qaeda, ISIS, others to recruit people against the
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: United States. It's so stupid.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: To do it that way. Also, we blew by just
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: using religious imagery a long time ago. He said today,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: he specifically said, we are fighting this war in the
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: name of Jesus Christ. And everything you said is true. Also,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: if you don't expect to get pushback from the Pope
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: and the Catholic Church, when you say that you are
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: fighting a war in the name of Jesus Christ, this
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: isn't like, God bless our troops, God keep our troops safe.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: It's nothing like that. It is like, we are fighting
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: a war in the name of Jesus Christ, which of
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: course the Pope is like, wait a minute, no, that's
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: a no-no. That's just a no-no always.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: I have a say on that.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Remember the crusades? That was bad. We don't want
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: to go back to that. So anyway, Pope Leo, who
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: was in Cameroon on Thursday, delivered some remarks that may
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: or may not have been a response to all this.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: You can decide for yourself.
• 13:20
  Speaker 10: Jesus told us, blessed are the peacemakers, but woe to
• 13:25
  Speaker 10: those who manipulate religion in the very name of God
• 13:29
  Speaker 10: for their own military, economic, or political gain. dragging that
• 13:34
  Speaker 10: which is sacred into darkness and filth.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Okay, then.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Good for Pope Leo. Trump was asked Thursday morning about
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: the church's statement that Pope Leo isn't expressing his opinion.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: He's preaching the gospel. To which the president responded, quote,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: I'm all about the gospel.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: That's what everyone says about him.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Mr.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: Gospel.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: He also said, quote, I have nothing against the Pope.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: His brother is MAGA all the way. And then when
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: he was asked whether he'd meet with the Pope to
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: patch things up, he said, quote, I don't think it's necessary.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Day five of MAGA versus the Holy See. What do
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: you think, Dan?
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: Doesn't seem to be going well for MAGA in this case,
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: maybe my take. I mean, let's not forget that what
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: actually started this was the Department of Defense meeting with
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: the Vatican to threaten them with military response for opposing
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: the war on Iran.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, subtly.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: So this is not just like a bunch of tweets.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: This was a direct threat, which is possibly the most
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: insane thing that's happened in all of the Trump years.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, probably the most insane thing that's ever happened in
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: the history of the relationship between the Catholic Church and
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: the US government.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know if my historical
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: knowledge would suggest that, but yeah, probably.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's pretty, it's wild.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: But also just the political idiocy of saying, you know what?
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: I got high gas prices. I got this war going on.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: My approval rating's under 40 now. You know what would
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: be a really good move for me? Let's pick a
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: fight with the American Pope from Chicago. It's just like, what?
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: It's so stupid.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: And Pope Leo, not backing down, he continued to say
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: in that speech in Cameroon, the world is being ravaged
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: by a handful of tyrants. Yet it is held together
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters. The masters
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: of war pretend not to know that it only takes
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: a moment to destroy, yet often a lifetime is not
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: enough to rebuild. It's pretty, pretty direct. And it's also, look, Trump,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Trump today and that when he was being asked questions,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: you could tell that someone like someone tried to walk
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: him back a little because he's like, I'm not fighting
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: with the pope. The pope said Iran can have a
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: nuclear weapon. That's the only I just disagreed with him.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: First of all, the pope didn't say that at all. Um, and,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: but you could tell he was like maybe wanting to
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: back down, but throughout the week, I mean, he called
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: up an Italian newspaper, um, to yell about Georgia Maloney,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the Italian prime minister, because she defended the Pope who
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: resides in the Vatican, which is in Italy. Um, and,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: and so he called her, um, he called her unacceptable
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: and said, it implied she was cowardly, said, I thought
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: she was brave, but I was wrong. So he pissed
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: off his now former right-wing ally, the prime minister of Italy.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: On Wednesday, the Miami Herald reported that the Trump administration
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: abruptly canceled an $ 11 million contract with Catholic charities in
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Miami to shelter and care for migrant children who come
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: to the U.S. with no parents. We must punish the
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: migrant children because Trump said that Pope Leo was weak
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: on crime and Pope Leo said, no, I'm not, I'm
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: the Pope.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, I know you guys talk about this on Tuesday,
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: but I have been laughing nonstop about.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Pope Leo, weak on crime.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: I was just like, what does he think? There's some
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: silent majority who wants a law and order pope? Like,
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: what are we doing?
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Pope Leo's weak on crime, weak on nuclear.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: He's... So fucking stupid.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: He's for they, them.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I'm for you.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: Someone should make a... A Trump attack ad on the Pope.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just, it's waiting there. I'd love for
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: somebody to do that. I mean, we talked about AI
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Jesus on Tuesday's pod. There was another AI image of Trump,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: of Jesus with his arm around Trump. Tucker Carlson said
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: it looked like he was caressing Trump. Tucker Carlson, by
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: the way, Tommy and I talked about this on YouTube.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: You should go check it out. Subscribe to our YouTube channel.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: But Tucker gave this monologue where he basically, not basically,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: he did compare Donald Trump to the Antichrist by reading
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: passages from the Bible about what the Antichrist would look
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: like if he came. And sure enough, it was a
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: little more similar than I thought it would be, actually,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: when I first listened to it. There was also an
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Axios story that sort of got to the bottom of
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: how the original AI Jesus meme came to be. Did
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: you read the story, Dan?
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: Is this the Bill Pulte one?
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Yep. Yep. Bill Pulte.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: Every terrible thing that Trump does starts with Bill Pulte.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: Who, if you don't know, is the head of mortgages, basically.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's supposed to be the federal housing authority, Fannie, Freddie, mortgages.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: And that's his- FHFA. FHFA, right. That's his official title.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: What he's been doing, well, what he's been doing is
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: fucking up everything, but he's been trying to prosecute Trump's
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: perceived enemies for mortgage fraud unsuccessfully. He's been pissing off
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Scott Besant, who has gotten in fights with him and
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: almost kicked the shit out of him. And apparently he
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: was with Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago. And here's what Axios reports.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: At some point, Pulte brought the image to Trump's attention
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: of AI Jesus, the meme. The advisors told Axios, it's
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: not clear whether he just displayed the rendering on his
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: phone or actually sent it to the president. Quote, everyone
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: thought it was a joke, one of the advisors said.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: And then in a smart brevity way, Axios writes, the intrigue.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Adding to the strangeness of the AI generated image Trump
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: posted late Sunday was that it included a mysterious horned
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: creature in the heavens that some interpreted as a demon,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: though art experts cautioned against reading too much into AI slop.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: But the original image of Trump as Christ-like healer didn't
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: include the horned creature. So the meme had been floating
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: around the internet for quite some time, but when Trump
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: posted it, the horned creature appeared.
• 19:47
  Speaker 7: So....
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: Let's dig into this for a second.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Lending credence to Tucker's belief that perhaps Trump really is
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: the Antichrist.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: So do you think that Bill Pulte just gave Trump
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: a newer version of that meme?
• 20:05
  Speaker 7: No.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: Or the White House altered it, or at some point
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: Satan himself got involved.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Honestly, none of those possibilities would surprise me.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: Yes, in fact, the most likely one, maybe the last one.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, the one that involves the
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: White House doctoring an image itself and trying to figure
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: out how to add, that actually strikes me as the
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: least plausible because that takes too much work and talent.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: So I don't think that's it, but who knows? Who knows?
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: It's hard to say. How do you think Catholic Trump
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: voters feel about this, Dan? Because I will say I
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: would have thought not, they wouldn't be too happy about it.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Just so people know, Catholic vote, Obama won American Catholics
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: 54-45 in 2008. Since then, Catholics have steadily moved right.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Trump won them 55-43 in 2024. And then I saw
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: something rather alarming today when I read uh, JVLs, the
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: triad at the bulwark, as I always do. Um, and
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: he said that he's on Sarah Longwell's focus group pod
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: this weekend. And he's like, oh, I don't want to
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: give too much away. But, um, basically he said that the,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: it was, it was a lot of Catholics who voted
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: for Trump, like Trump voter, Trump supporting Catholics. And, uh,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: they took Trump side and Trump versus Pope Leo.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: Let's lay the groundwork.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: Which is, um, there are, um, in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin,
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: and Arizona, more than a quarter of the electorate is Catholic.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: In the three blue wall states, there's about five and
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: a half million Catholics. If 300,000 of those switch their
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: votes in 2024, Kamala Harris will be president today. So
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: the Catholic vote is very powerful in this country, and
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: it's particularly powerful in the states that decide the presidency.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: And it's worth noting that a huge swath of Catholics
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: in this country are Latino. which partially explains the big shift.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: Because Catholics were basically tied in 2020 with Biden. Then
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: they moved dramatically in Trump's way in 2024. That's mostly
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: white Catholics, but also a lot of it is Latinos
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: moving in Trump's direction.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Makes sense.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: But it's also worth noting that people's political identity is
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: often preeminent on these things, which is why you had
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: a bunch of Catholics who voted for Obama despite him
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: being pro-choice despite putting contraceptive care in the Affordable Care Act,
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: changing position in 2012 to being for same-sex marriage, all
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: of those things. So you would not expect a triple-voting
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: Trump Catholic to all of a sudden change their mind
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: because of this fight.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: Now, having said all of that, I think this is
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: a problem for Trump beyond just Catholics. The dumb Trump
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: fights that we've been living with for 10 years– just
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: hit different when gas is $ 4 a gallon and when
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: people are upset about everything else. If the economy is
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: humming and prices are low, people put up with a
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: lot of idiocy from their president. When things are not
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: going great, they're just like, this goes in there with
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: the ballroom, the Iran war, all the other things he's
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: doing other than solving my problems. So I put it
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: the following ways. This is bad for Trump politically. Even
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: if a tiny fraction of Catholics in the states I
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: mentioned turn on Trump for this, that has real implications
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: for House races in those states, Senate races in those states,
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: like the Michigan Senate race, for instance, and in 2028
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: if it stays that way.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I also think if you're a Trump supporter who is
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: either against or unsure of this war, and you're also
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: sort of horrified by his threat to eradicate a civilization overnight,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: and then Pope Leo speaks and you're like, yeah, that's
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: how I feel. And I'm a Catholic. And then Trump
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: attacks Pope Leo. I think that's an added sort of
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: push in another direction for you as a Catholic. So
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: you're right. It's like this stuff is on the margins
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: as everything is. One more thing before we leave our
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: holy war section, Pete Hegseth, who is clearly well-versed in scripture,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: delivered a stirring prayer to soldiers at a Pentagon worship
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: service this week, an excerpt of which the internet has
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: helpfully spliced together with a monologue from that may be
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: familiar to you.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Let's listen.
• 24:23
  Speaker 11: Blessed is he who in the name of camaraderie and
• 24:26
  Speaker 11: duty shepherd the lost through the valley of darkness.
• 24:29
  Speaker 9: Blessed is he who in the name of charity and
• 24:32
  Speaker 9: goodwill shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness.
• 24:36
  Speaker 11: For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder
• 24:39
  Speaker 11: of lost children.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder.
• 24:45
  Speaker 11: And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance
• 24:48
  Speaker 11: and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy
• 24:52
  Speaker 11: my brother.
• 24:52
  Speaker 12: This guy's crushing it, huh? Well, it's important to point
• 24:54
  Speaker 12: out that that's not a real verse. It's based on
• 24:57
  Speaker 12: a real verse.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: But it is, when you look at the real verse
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: versus Samuel L. Jackson's monologue in Pulp Fiction written by
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Quentin Tarantino, it is quite different, yeah.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's Quentin Tarantino took it from a samurai movie,
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: I believe, which is originally where this comes from. I
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: learned this in college because I was in college when
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: this movie came out. I'm old, I know, but we
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: were in, because I went to Jesuit University, we were
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: in theology, and so it was pointed out that this
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: was not the exact right version of this line from scripture.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: You think Pete Hegseth skipped that class, that theology class,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: whatever college he went to?
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Was it before noon?
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Oh, enough said, enough said. Anyway, that's our defense secretary
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: right there, just sending the troops into battle with that.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: So good stuff.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America is brought to you by HIMSS. ED
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: is way more common than most guys think. Millions of
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: guys deal with it at some point, and that's exactly
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: why HIMSS offers a straightforward way to handle it. HIMSS
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: connects you with licensed healthcare providers online, giving you simple
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: access to legitimate ED treatment options from home. No awkward appointments,
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: no pharmacy lines, just complete a simple online intake, and
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: a provider will review your information to determine if treatment
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: is right for you. If prescribed, your treatment ships directly
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: to your door in discreet packaging. That includes sildenafil, also
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: known as generic for Viagra, available through HIMS at up
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: to 95% less than the brand name version. And if
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: that option isn't right for you, there are additional treatment
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: options available so you can find what works best for
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: your body. It's straightforward, transparent, and designed to make getting
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: care feel easy. So, you know, go check it out.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: It says, you know, it says that you can get
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: the- It's a straightforward way to handle it. Yeah, it'll
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: handle it. You can handle it or not handle it.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: And it says that these are great treatment options from home.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: And I think home is the best place to do it.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: You know, on the list of places where you could
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: get the treatment to get simple online access to personalized,
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: affordable care for ed weight loss and more visit hymns.com
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: slash crooked. That's hymns.com slash crooked for your free online
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: visit hymns.com slash crooked prescription required. See website for details
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: and important safety information. So Denafil is the generic name
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: of Viagra. Viagra is a registered trademark of Viatras.com. specialty
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: LLC hymns is not affiliated with or endorsed by the actress.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Hot save America is brought to you by cook unity.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: I love cook unity.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Love it.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Uh, I, I've been ordering cook unity since long before.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: They were ever a sponsor.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: My meals got delivered while we were doing this app.
• 27:51
  Speaker 12: Literally.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I pulled up my order.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Checking it out.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Italian beef ragu with zucchini noodles.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Sign me up.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Martin's Ecuadorian chicken. Braised beef barbacoa tacos. Crispy pan fried
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Cajun salmon. I could go on, but I won't. It's
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: all delicious. Come to the house once a week. Get
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: five or six meals. Pop them in the microwave. A
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: couple of minutes, or you can reheat them in the
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: oven or the air fryer.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: Or their salads, you just eat them right out of
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: the thing.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: They're great. They're fresh.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: I got the Italian chicken rollatini, the grilled chicken salad,
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: the Middle Eastern chicken, Thai Penang curry.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: I love the Thai Penang curry. It's great. Love it.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: So here's the deal. If you've got culinary taste, you
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: know how expensive exploring your local food scene can get
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: or how hard it is. to find the time and
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: energy to try somewhere new. CookUnity is the first chef
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: to you service, delivering locally sourced meals from award-winning chefs
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: right to your door every week. And it's cheaper than
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: other delivery options. Go to cookunity.com slash crooked or enter
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: code crooked before checkout for 50% off your first week.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: CookUnity works with some of the best chefs in the
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: country to bring creative, delicious meals to you every week.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Every meal is handcrafted by chefs and made in local
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: micro kitchens, not large production. facilities, your food arrives fresh,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: never frozen, and packaging that keeps meals fresh in the
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: fridge for up to seven days. CookUnity packaging is compostable, recyclable,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: or reusable. Pick as few as four or as many
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: as 16 meals per week. There are hundreds of dishes
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: to choose from, and the menu is updated constantly. Experience
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: chef-quality meals every week delivered right to your door. Go
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: to cookunity.com slash crooked or enter code crooked before checkout
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: for 50% off your first week. That's 50% off your
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: first week by using code crooked or going to cookunity.com
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: slash crooked. So the war that the President and the
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Pope are fighting about is still very much unresolved, despite
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Trump's repeated claims to the contrary. The U.S. is still
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: blockading Iran's ports. Iran is still controlling the Strait of Hormuz.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: And we learned on Thursday morning that because the U.S.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: and Iran are still far apart on minor issues like
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: the fate of Iran's nuclear program, the two sides are
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: looking at a short-term agreement before the ceasefire expires on Tuesday.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: that would allow for more traffic to get through the
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Strait of Hormuz in exchange potentially for unfreezing some Iranian assets.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: In better news, however, Israel has agreed to a 10-day
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: ceasefire in Lebanon, which just went into effect right as
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: we started recording, so hopefully that holds. Trump was asked
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: about all of this Thursday morning and gave his usual
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: set of confusing and somewhat contradictory answers. Let's listen. extending
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: the ceasefire with Iran.
• 30:24
  Speaker 7: With who? With Iran. We're doing very well, I can
• 30:28
  Speaker 7: tell you. Maybe it'll happen before that. I'm not sure
• 30:31
  Speaker 7: it needs to be extended. Iran wants to make a deal.
• 30:35
  Speaker 7: And we're dealing very nicely with them.
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: They've agreed to give us back the nuclear dust. It's
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: way underground. The blockade has been incredible. It's been, it's held.
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: They're not doing any business. They're unable to do any
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: business because of the blockade. Everything is gone, including their leaders.
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: Now they have a new set of leaders and we
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: find them very reasonable. There's no deal, fight or resume.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: No deal, fighting or resume. 10,000 more American troops are
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: headed to the region right now on top of the 50,000
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: already there. So like it is really I found it
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: more difficult today to figure out what the hell is
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: going on than even most days, because you get all
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: this reporting that like they gave up on the big deal.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Now they're trying to get a smaller deal and a
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: ceasefire because the ceasefire expires on Tuesday. And then Trump's
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: out there being like, we're close. We're close to a
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: big deal. And I think I'll fly to Pakistan to
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Islamabad if there's a deal. And talks could resume this weekend.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: And you're like, well, doesn't someone have to get on
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: a plane to Pakistan if talks are resuming this weekend? Like,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: I have no idea what's going on. But do you
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: think from a political standpoint, at least, that Trump is
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: succeeding in pretending that we've already won this thing just
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: to try to get it out of the headlines or
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: at least stop it from being a major topic in
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: the midterms, which obviously it still will be if gas
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: prices are high. But what do you think?
• 31:55
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: So let's talk about what Trump's actually trying to do here,
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: other than just vomit up words that make no sense.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: To the extent there is a strategy, it is he
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: wants this war to be over. He wants the Strait
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: of Hormuz open. And he wants to do that without
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: admitting defeat. He wants a win of some kind. And
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: getting the dust would be a win, getting some sort
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: of agreement. Now, they clearly are– and he wants to
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: keep sounding optimistic because that's the best way to keep
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: the markets on board. The stock market, not the oil market.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: The oil market doesn't really give a shit what Trump says.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: It really matters what's going to happen over the medium
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: term and the long term here. But he's just trying
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: to manage the stock market. The problem is that all
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: of that runs into reality at some point. And at
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: some point, you recognize that we have very little leverage
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: in these discussions. They control the strait. We are unwilling
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: or unable to do the things it would take to
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: open the strait. Iran could also start messing with other waterways.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: All of a sudden, Houthis could get involved in the
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: Red Sea, and then we have huge problems. But none
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: of that matters in the end. I think if you
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: want to get to the political part of this, which
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: is I think the most damage, long-term damage has already
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: been done to Trump, which is he is a guy
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: who said he wasn't going to start wars, and now
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: he started wars. That's part one of the damage. The
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: second part is There's always a moment in these presidents
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: where voters have real questions, but they swallowed those questions
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: when they voted for him. And one is that Trump's
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: kind of a nut. And he's erratic. He's rash. He
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: doesn't really pay attention to what's going on. And we
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: skated through without that being a huge problem in his
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: first term until the pandemic hit. And then here, Like
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: this is what everyone warned about with Trump. It's a
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: little bit like this is what Katrina– the Red War
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: is to Trump what Katrina was to Bush politically, which
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: was we knew the guy was kind of a knucklehead, right?
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: And here it is. We see the cost of it.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: You're seeing the cost of it here.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: COVID was like that too.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, COVID was, except people did not blame Trump for COVID.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: That was, like, we see that, right? And people who
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: really paid attention see the mistakes they made, but the
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: public never held Trump accountable for COVID, which is why
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: he almost won re-election because of it.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the public definitely didn't hold him responsible
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: for the economic impacts of COVID. I think that the
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: way he handled that first year up until the November
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: of 2020, I think it probably hurt him.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's why he lost.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: That's why he lost.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: But it's on the, like, he's still... Lost by whatever
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: it was, 50,000 votes.
• 34:36
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Not enough.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: Whether gas prices come down or not, prices are going
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: to be higher than they were before. Any hope of
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: some sort of economic miracle before the midterms that would
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: put some wind in the sails of Republicans, that is
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: gone now. That just simply cannot happen. Because gas prices,
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: as far as anyone can tell, are not going to
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: be lower than they were when he started this war,
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: even if they're not at $ 4 a gallon come November.
• 35:00
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: I was trying to think. I'm like, because... you know,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: if the Iranians decide that even though they control the
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: Strait of Hormuz, that their economy has been badly damaged,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: their infrastructure has been damaged, they've, you know, would they
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: want to make a deal? The only kind of deal
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: I could see them making ends up looking a lot
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: like the Obama's Iran deal, the JCPOA, right? Like they're
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: already talking about, you know, a that the U.S. is saying, okay,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: maybe we'll do 20 years of no nuclear activity. And
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: then Iran says five. And then if they end up
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: at 10, 10 is exactly what the Obama-Zarok deal is.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: And you could imagine some kind of a deal that
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Trump decides to present as like the greatest deal on earth.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: And then when you look into the details, it is
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: like strikingly similar to the 2015 JCPOA, in which case,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: you know, I think that like, I guess he'll take
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: that as a win and act like it's the greatest
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: deal and then he should get the Nobel Peace Prize.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: But then it sort of begs the question, well, Obama
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: got that through diplomacy and you got that through upending
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: the global economy and killing a bunch of people and
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: depleting a lot of our munitions and sending our military
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: into battle and losing 13 American lives, 15 American lives.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: I do not think the public will give him one
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: ounce of credit.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no. I think he'll take the credit, but they won't.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: I don't think the public will either. But it'll be like,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: you know, I think the Republicans who are sort of wavering,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: they'll all get back on side and then we'll be
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: off to the next thing.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: You think the voters or the Republican elites?
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: I think Republican elites and then I think Republican voters
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: who were mostly on board anyway, but I think that
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: the ones he lost, we'll see. We'll see.
• 36:51
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, like he really is only lost four points
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: in overall approval ratings since this war started. So even getting,
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: even if we were to get that every single one
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: of the people back, he gets them to back up
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: to 42.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: And I will say this is, this would be the
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: best case scenario for him.
• 37:03
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: And by the way, it's the best case scenario for everyone.
• 37:06
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Like if there's a deal, that's, that's wonderful. And the
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: straight opens and we've somehow put new restrictions on their
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: nuclear program.
• 37:13
  Speaker 9: Like, great.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: It's, I mean, awful that this happened, but of all
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: the outcomes ahead of us, because if there is no deal,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: he keeps saying, oh, then the fighting will resume. Hegseth
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: talked about at the briefing today. Uh, yeah, well, we still,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: we'll still threatening the power plants and the bridges. Like
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: they can go right back to where we were, um,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: when it was bridging power plant day and he was
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: threatening war crimes. So that would be fucking awful, but
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: who knows?
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: It's like, to what end? Like that hasn't, because you
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: can destroy all those things. Like, I mean, Tommy, I'm
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: gonna talk about this all the time, but what Iran
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: cares about is the people in charge care about staying
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: in power and they're in power.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: And they're not going to get voted. They are not
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: concerned about the impact of destroyed power plants on the
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: generic ballot like that. It's not that's not there. They
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: just they can wait this out forever. Yeah.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Speaking of the midterms, the Trump affordability tour continues. Took
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: a little break. It's back on now to celebrate tax week.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: It was tax day this week. Trump went to Las
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Vegas on Thursday for a tried and true roundtable, plus
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: remarks promoting his no tax on tips policy and broader
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: tax relief. He claims were delivered by the big, beautiful bill.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: The event happened after we recorded this, but he did
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: take a bunch of questions about affordability on the South
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Lawn as he left for the trip. Let's take a listen.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: How much longer will Americans continue to see these high
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: gas prices?
• 38:27
  Speaker 7: Well, they're not very high. If you look at what
• 38:29
  Speaker 7: they were supposed to be in order to get rid
• 38:31
  Speaker 7: of a nuclear weapon with the danger that entails. So
• 38:34
  Speaker 7: the gas prices have come down very much over the
• 38:37
  Speaker 7: last three, four days. I know, you know, and that's
• 38:40
  Speaker 7: what ABC says. But the fact is that if you
• 38:43
  Speaker 7: look at the stock markets up, everything's doing really well.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: You just can't do it.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: You can't.
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: ABC says the gas prices are high. Okay, sure. ABC
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: says it. Or you could just go to your fucking
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: gas station and look up.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the one thing you're not pulling the wool over
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: people's eyes is gas prices. The one thing that is
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: advertised on every highway exit in America is.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: And look, everyone knows what gas prices are supposed to
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: be when you try to get rid of nuclear weapons,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: when you try to fight the nuclear. What is he saying?
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: Is he saying imagine how high gas prices would be
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: if we.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: Had a– I think everything is like I did better
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: than I was supposed to do. Either I did something
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: amazing or if he knows he's in trouble, well, what
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: I did is better than what it was supposed to be.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: It doesn't make any sense, but he's trying to make
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: the argument that actually the stock market was supposed to
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: be worse and gas prices were supposed to be higher
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: and more people were supposed to be dead. And look,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: look what I did. It's not so bad. I saved us.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: The country would be destroyed without me.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: It's like he's walking up to the line of saying, yes,
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: gas prices are high. That sucks. But it is a price,
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: a sacrifice we all have to make to prevent Iran
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: from posing an existential threat to the United States. Yeah,
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: but he can't- Like that's the honest answer, but he's incapable.
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, no one would, that's not a deal anyone
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: would sign up for.
• 40:08
  Speaker 11: No.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: But that- Which he knows.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: But he like can't say it. So he has to say,
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: there is this very important thing we're doing, but also
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: gas prices are very low. And if someone tells you
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: they're not, it's because they're fake news.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: So- Obviously, Trump has stepped all over his affordability coverage
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: by continuing his fight with God's emissary here on Earth.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: But question for you, is it clear that a day
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: of coverage about the big, beautiful bill, the tax law,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: no tax on tips, affordability, ragging about low gas prices
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: would have been better for him?
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: This is the line you hear all the time from
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: the Republicans, right? Whether it's Susie Wiles and James Blair
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: in the White House or the Republicans on Capitol Hill,
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: all the operatives working on the campaign superfaxes, we need
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: Trump to get back to the economic message. I'm just
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: not convinced that that would work for a couple of reasons. One,
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: Trump's incapable. He is psychologically incapable of delivering what would
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: be the most effective economic message. He just can't do it.
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: He cannot say what he's doing to lower prices because
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: he can't admit the prices are high. That is the
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: fundamental problem there. The second problem is that this is
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: not Trump of 2016, Trump of 2020, or even Trump
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: of 2024. This is a man who is 20 points
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: underwater on the economy and 30 points underwater on inflation.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: He is not a trusted messenger. The efficacy of any
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: message is intrinsically tied to the credibility of the messenger.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: And so Trump talking about the economy when people thought
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: he was good on the economy was helpful. Trump talking
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: about the economy right now is nothing but noise to
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: most voters because they do not Trust him.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: And this whole thing about the tax bill and no
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: tax on tips and Republicans will say, oh, well, this
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: part's popular and that part's popular. But the fact of
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: the matter is the increase in gas prices, persistent inflation
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: has completely wiped away any gains anyone received from tax cuts,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: middle class tax cuts, to the extent there were middle
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: class tax cuts in the big, beautiful bill, like no
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: tax on tips. And I think there was a story
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: in The New York Times about someone who was like, yeah,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: you know, I usually get a $ 350 refund and I
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: got like $ 1, 000 or so this year, but also way
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: fewer people are coming to my business to buy things
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: because it's just, it's tougher out there. And so I
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: don't think he gets any credit for this. And you're right.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: Instead of talking about it as, hey, we made a
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: down payment and we helped you out a little bit,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: but we need more Republicans in Congress to pass bigger
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: tax relief or to do this, you know, like he's
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: incapable of doing that. All he can do is be like,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: And I solved everything. And everyone's rich now. And gas
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: prices aren't bad. And the fake news media is telling
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: you your life's bad, but everything's great. That's the only
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: speed he has.
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: I am just skeptical that when push comes to shove,
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: the major Republican campaigns or the Republican super PACs are
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: going to spend a lot of money touting the big,
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: beautiful bill on TV and digital. They're going to spend
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: all of their money trying to attack the Democrats on immigration, crime,
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: cultural issues, et cetera, to try to disqualify them. Because
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: that is the only chance they have is that there
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: are enough swing voters, soft Republicans, independents who are skeptical
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: of Democrats that it might help tamp down their losses.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: But this idea that we are one affordability tour away
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: from a Republican resurgence is absurd.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Trump does seem like he's coming to grips with all
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: of this, with how poorly the midterms are going. Here
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: he is working through it on Wednesday with Maria Bartiromo
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: on Fox Business.
• 43:33
  Speaker 12: Do you expect the Republicans to lose seats in the House?
• 43:36
  Speaker 13: And what does that mean for your agenda? When somebody
• 43:38
  Speaker 13: gets elected president, that party always loses the midterms. I
• 43:43
  Speaker 13: don't know why.
• 43:43
  Speaker 7: I don't know why.
• 43:44
  Speaker 13: Nobody can explain it. I ask people that are deep
• 43:48
  Speaker 13: into the psychological world. I said, why is it that
• 43:51
  Speaker 13: a voter votes for the opposite party? Even when you
• 43:54
  Speaker 13: have a good president, I think I had the greatest year.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Dear, hello, people deep in the psychological world.
• 44:01
  Speaker 12: Why is it.
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: Right who is dr phil is dr phil it's definitely
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: dr phil.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Someone said dr oz to me i've never got a
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: doctor but yes uh yeah you're deep in the psychological
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: world why is it that someone votes against a great
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: president like me there are so many.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: Public science polysci professors right now who are like jumping
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: through their phones to try to explain thermostatic i was
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: gonna say.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Trump discovers thermostatic public opinion there it is there it
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: is um Unsurprisingly, Trump's fellow Republicans are starting to get
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: nervous that Trump isn't exactly locked in message wise. Here's
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Tuesday's Politico headline. Republicans worry White House nonsense is hurting
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: midterm prospects. It also includes a quote from Brian Lanza,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: who was a senior advisor to Trump's 2024 campaign. He
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: said the road to victory runs through a consistent economic message. Unfortunately,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: President Trump ignores the roadmap.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: No shit.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Any takeaways from the from the Politico piece?
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: It is interesting that– because you don't see this that often,
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: which is– this is kind of a tradition in midterms
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: where the folks on the Hill start to blame the
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: White House this far out. And so all of a
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: sudden you've got a lot of very brave Republican operatives
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: unwilling to put their names on things to start saying
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: this is the White House's fault. But they are correct
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: that– look, if Trump was executing his political and message
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: strategy perfectly, the Republicans would still be kind of fucked here.
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: Like it is the– Trump's second midterm– Prices are high.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: There's a war in the Middle East. But Trump is
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: doing nothing to help them. And he's doing nothing strategically
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: to help them. He's not doing a lot tactically to
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: help them. Let's not forget, we are now a month
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: away from the Texas runoff, and Trump has not endorsed
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: the chosen candidate of the NRSC yet.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Wild.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: There are things he could be doing to help, and
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: he is not helping. And they are unfocused on everything.
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: And that hurts them on the margins.
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 45:53
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: Like the problem, I mean, the real thing, like the
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: nonsense hurts on the margins. Tariffs and a war in Iran,
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: that really hurts. And that's the stuff that really matters here.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of focus on like Trump's going off
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: the cuff again and not on the roadmap. And it's like, well,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: the war he started and the tariffs and the gas price.
• 46:12
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: Like that's the, it's not a communications problem.
• 46:15
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: It's just, he's not even trying to make things better
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: and he's makes them worse when he opens his mouth.
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: It doesn't seem to care that much about what's going
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: to happen.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America is brought to you by Dose. Your
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: 20-something self probably wasn't putting too much thought into your cholesterol.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: It certainly wasn't on my radar a decade ago. Nice
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: that this ad thinks it was only a decade ago
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: that I was in my 20s, but sweet of you
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: to say Dose. These days, however, keeping an eye on
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: your cholesterol might be a standard part of your grown-up routine.
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: That's where Dose for Cholesterol comes in. It is a
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: daily liquid supplement designed to fit easily into your routine.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: It's a convenient two-ounce daily shot with a refreshing mango flavor.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: No mixing powders, no oversized pills, no elaborate routine to
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: abandon after a week. Dose for Cholesterol is made with
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: ingredients like turmeric, CoQ10 and Amla. And it is built
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: to be simple. You grab it, take it and get
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: on with your day. And it ships directly to your door,
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: which makes consistency a lot more realistic. If you have
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: been looking for an easy way to be more intentional
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: about your daily habits, you can check out dose for
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: cholesterol and their full lineup of wellness shots. New customers
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: can save 35% on your first month of subscription by
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: going to dose daily.co slash crooked or entering crooked at checkout.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: That's D O S E D A I L Y
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: dot C O slash crooked for 35% off your first
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: month subscription.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: So with everything going on this week, we haven't had
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: the chance to talk about the big news in Hungary,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: where autocrat Viktor Orban went down in a landslide after
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: 16 years in power, despite the last-minute rally from key
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: surrogate and Catholic explainer J.D.
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: Vance.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Orban was defeated by Peter Modjar, a conservative pro-EU former
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: ally who turned against Orban and his party in 2024.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Modjar campaigned aggressively on battling corruption. and dismantling the media
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: and political machine Orban had built. He drove this home
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: in a viral appearance on pro-Orban state television this week,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: which he said had blacklisted him until now, where he
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: told the pro-Orban presenter that he'll be working to revive
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: independent media and that their work on the network would
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: have made Goebbels and Kim Jong-un, quote, lick their lips.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: This is wild. I've been looking at his Twitter feed
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: and he's just like, it's quite a victory lap here.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: He posted to the Fidesz leaders, that's the Orbán' s party,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: I say this, no matter how much you pretend that
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: nothing has happened, we know what you have done to
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: our homeland and to the Hungarian people. Do not doubt
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: for a moment, you reap what you sow. He also
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: said that one of the first he sort of tweeted
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: the picture of him at the appearance on the state television.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: And he said, one of the first measures of his
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: government will be the immediate suspension of the public media's
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: news services until all conditions for impartial and objective journalism
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: are fully restored. And that he'll ensure press freedom, abolish
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: censorship and eliminate prohibited state subsidies. Then he also, he
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: went to meet with the president of Hungary. The president
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: is more of a ceremonial role than the prime minister there.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: But this was like an Orban guy. And so he
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: posts a picture of him meeting with the president. And
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: then he said, I have arrived at the palace to
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: meet the president. He's unworthy of representing the unity of
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: the Hungarian nation. He's unfit to serve as the guardian
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: of legality. He is not fit to serve as a
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: moral authority or role model. Following the formation of the
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: new government, he must leave office immediately. And it's just
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: like a picture of the two of them meeting. It's great.
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: It made me think about, fantasize about what would happen
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: if a Democrat comes to power in 2028. But I
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: do wonder if you think there's any lessons for the
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: pro-democracy coalition in this country on sort of both how
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: to take down a corrupt dictator and also what to
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: do if we win.
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: So let's talk about the what to do if we win.
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: Because the victory against Orban was years and years in
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: the making and a resistance that was operating under much
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: worse conditions than we are in the United States. We
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: do not have state-controlled media here yet. And one way
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: you can avoid that is by subscribing to our friends
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: at the pod at cricket.com slash friends.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Organic mention.
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: Exactly. Somewhere, Elijah will be cheering. I think the lesson
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: for us is in response, which is you simply cannot
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: turn the other cheek to fascism. We learned this lesson.
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: This is essentially what Biden wanted to do. It's what
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: Merrick Garland wanted to do until he was bullied into
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: actually trying to uphold the law by the January 6th
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: hearings in Congress. There's going to be a massive project
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: to dig out root and branch all of the corruption
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: and the corrupt that Trump has put in our government
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: and to hold them accountable. This is going to be
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: hard because Trump is probably going to pardon All of them.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: Yep. We didn't talk about the Wall Street Journal story
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: from last week, I think, where Trump has reported saying
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: in meetings that he's going to pardon everyone who's come
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: within 200 feet of the Oval Office that works in
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: the federal government.
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: And it's just putting a pin on that is worth
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: noting that the Supreme Court gave Trump immunity to commit crimes,
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: and that Trump now has now given his staff immunity
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: to help him commit those crimes.
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: But we have to If you can't prosecute those people
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: because of pardons, you have to call them out publicly.
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: There has to be accountability hearings. They have to be
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: named in shame. They have to be removed from their positions.
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: We have to be tough with the law firms, the corporations,
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: everyone else, the media companies who essentially engage in legalized
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: bribery to try to win favor with Trump, the ones
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: who are spending money on his ballroom, who are changing
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: the programming at networks in order to appease him. You have...
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: And I think those people should know now, and I
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: hope the Democrats talk about this, know now that those
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: consequences are coming, right? There is at least a 50%
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: chance that a Democrat is going to be president in 2029.
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: And what you do now is something that person is
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: not going to forget.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: My head hurts thinking about the battle to come within
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party about this, because I would bet you
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: that a lot of the pollsters and the strategists will say,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: people that we know will say, voters just elected ex-Democrat
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: to focus on affordability and that's why they won and
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: they have to make sure they bring costs down and
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: they have to be laser-like focused on people's lives and
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: their struggles and we can't be spending all this time
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: on hearings looking back because then voters are going to say,
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: I elected you to do something to improve my life
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: and all you're doing now is attacking Trump and Trump
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: officials and looking backwards and We have to look forward
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: as a party, and so the strategists will say that,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: and then everyone else will yell at them, and it'll
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: be a whole thing. And it might not be even
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: after we win. It'll probably be a fight during the
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: 2028 primary, I bet.
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: I don't think it'll be a fight during the primary.
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: I think they're going to be one-upping each other. Yeah,
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: that's true. Like by the third debate, someone's going to
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: be promising like, you know, tarring, we'll be promising like
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: stoning in the public square, live streaming of these officials.
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: You know, and look, we know this because there was
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: a lot of pressure on Obama to prosecute the Bush
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: people for torture. And that was a choice that the
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: Obama Department of Justice did not make. And the arguments
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: were exactly that, was that people wanted to turn the page.
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: The issue here is that this is not a short-term
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: political decision. This is a long-term decision related to the
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: preservation of democracy, where that if you allow people to
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: understand that raiding our government and breaking laws for the
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: consolidation of power is something that has no consequences, and
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: that will happen time again. And we will just be
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: ping-ponging back and forth between democracy and being on the
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: cusp of fascism every couple of election cycles, and that
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: cannot happen.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: I've thought about this. Here's what I would advise, which
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: is taking a taking a page out of the Trump
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: playbook and Steve Bannon sort of flood the zone strategy.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: I think you do it all. You do as much
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: as possible in like the first couple of weeks while
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: you're still in the honeymoon phase. And you've got like
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: I saw that picture of him with the president's like
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: you go to the FBI, Kash Patel, you're fucking out.
• 54:51
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: Because the FBI director is supposed to have a 10 year,
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: 10 year term. No way. Obviously, Kash Patel is going
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: to stay there. And Brendan Carr, right. FCC chairman, like
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: all these people. that are supposedly in the old world
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: had terms that lasted through different presidencies. You got to
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: clear them all out. Basically every Trump appointee, every person
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: Trump hired, I think you got to clear out of
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: the federal government within like the first week. And because
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: the whole prosecution thing is like, you know, right. Do
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: people get pardons? Then it's like, can states do it?
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: And the federal government doesn't control the state. So like
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, you got to just be careful about,
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: I think. And you can't have it you can't have
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: it be dragging on for two years, but I do
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: think you've got to act fast in those first, in
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: that like first month to sort of, and, and talk
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: about it as rooting out corruption.
• 55:36
  Speaker 12: Right.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Um, and, and like you said, it is probably even
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: more important to do it as substance than to do
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: it as, um, I mean, the substance sends a message,
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: but it's not like, like you just got to actually
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: do the work behind the scenes to like root out, like,
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: you know, de-Trumpify the entire government. And if you're doing
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: it all at once, then that's probably even better because
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: then they'll all bitch about it and scream and it'll
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: be some stories like, or it's so-and-so looking backwards, but
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: then it'll go away after a month or two and
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: then you're off to your agenda.
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: My hope is that this is a big part of
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: the Project 2029. It's not just like who should be
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: our undersecretary of whatever and what our global warming executive
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: orders are. It is like, how do we solve this problem?
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: And what is the playbook for doing that? And one
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: thing that a Democratic majority in Congress can do is
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: they can use their investigative power to get the information now,
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: to have it and be able to hand it to
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: the next Democratic press or the next Democratic attorney general
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: on day one. If any of these people you can
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: be prosecuted, do that. But then also for the purposes
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: of rooting the people out, holding them accountable publicly, all
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: of the above.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And you've got to have a good forward-looking perspective
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: anti-corruption agenda and put some reforms in place so that
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: you can show people that this isn't going to happen
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: again because we're actually going to put in laws instead
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: of just having norms this time. Last thing before we
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: get to Tommy's interview with Peggy Flanagan, RFK Jr. testified
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: in Congress Thursday for the first time this year during
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: a pair of hearings. He's apparently doing seven altogether, where
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: Democrats grilled him on cutting health programs like Medicaid and
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: nutrition for women and infants, his anti-vax policies in the
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: midst of a measles outbreak. And according to Representative Linda Sanchez, quote,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: spending taxpayer dollars to drink milk shirtless in a hot
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: tub with Kid Rock. It is what happened. He did
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: put the video out himself. What he wasn't asked about, however,
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: is a new biography about him written by New York
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: Post reporter Isabel Vincent, which contains the following excerpt from
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: RFK Jr. 's private journal written between 1999 and 2001. Quote,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: I was standing in front of my parked car on I-684,
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: cutting the penis out of a road-killed raccoon, thinking about
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: how weird some of my family members have turned out
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: to be. Thankfully, even though RFK Jr. wasn't pressed on
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: the raccoon penis during his testimony, TMZ's new DC operation
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: was on hand to bring us this.
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: Secretary, what did you do with the raccoon's dead penis?
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Where is it now? Where's the penis now? Bear cubs,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: whale carcasses, and raccoon penises.
• 58:16
  Speaker 12: Oh my!
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: Can I give people a little behind the scenes here?
• 58:22
  Speaker 13: Yes.
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: Before we do our first editorial meeting... We kind of
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: jot out what the contours of the show might be.
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: And we always call the last thing here that's a
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: little bit of fun. We call it dessert. And on
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: the outline, it said dessert colon raccoon penis.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: Which it could be literal for RFK Jr.
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we don't. He has refused to answer questions about
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: whether he ate the raccoon penis.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: No, he's apparently going to study it later. This guy
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: is fucking... For what?
• 58:50
  Speaker 13: Exactly.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: Exactly. This is our health secretary, our health and human
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: services secretary. I was hoping when you were- Dead raccoon
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: penis in his pocket. I know you were traveling- Or
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: is he happy to see you?
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: Is that a dead raccoon penis in your pocket? Are
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: you happy to see me?
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: I got to say, when I woke up and saw
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: that you said dessert for a raccoon penis, I was
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: a little disappointed because I know you were traveling yesterday
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: and I was hoping that maybe you had, why would
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: you have missed it? You don't miss anything. But I
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: was hoping that maybe you had missed the story and
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: I could surprise you with raccoon penis.
• 59:22
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: No, I really saw it this morning. So you got
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: my initial reaction was, oh, look, dessert, raccoon penis.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: Anyway, he didn't have a lot of good answers about
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: everything else that he's fucked up as Health and Human
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: Services Secretary, like why did you cancel pro-vaccine messaging, public
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: service announcements, in the middle of a measles outbreak? And
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: then he tried to say, well, we're doing better than
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: other countries. And then the representative pointed out, no, we're
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: actually not, that the incidence of measles has risen here
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: in the last two years faster than anywhere else on Earth.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: So thank you, RFK Jr., for all that you're doing
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: for health. But I hope you're studying hard. I don't know. Sorry. Look, look.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: I didn't even try to. I mean, look.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: He has an agenda. His agenda is a dead raccoon
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: penis in every pot.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: Again, dumped the bear cub in the park after a
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: botched attempt to skin it. That's one. Decapitated the whale carcass,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: cutting off the raccoon penis while thinking to himself, boy,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: have my family members turned out pretty weird.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, those are all plot points in a Netflix serial
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: killer documentary.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, there you go. All right, when we come back,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: poor Peggy Flanagan.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: What an intro. But when we come back, Tommy talks
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: to Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota, Peggy Flanagan. Pod Save America
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: is brought to you by Quince. This time of year
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: might make you rethink what's in your closet. You want
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: to move away from clutter and toward high-quality pieces you
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: can actually live in. That's why you should check out Quince.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: The fabrics feel elevated, the fits are thoughtful, and the
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: pricing actually makes sense, too. Quince makes high-quality, everyday essentials
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: using premium materials. Their 100% European linen pants and shirts
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: for men are lightweight, breathable, and comfortable, basically the perfect
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: layer for spring. The pants strike the right balance between
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: laid-back and refined, so you look put together without trying
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: too hard. And their flow-knit activewear?
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 13: Pfft.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Moisture-wicking, anti-odor, and soft enough that you'll actually want to
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: wear it all day.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 12: Nice.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: The best part is that their prices are 50% to
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: 60% less than similar brands. How? Quince works directly with
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: Ethical Factories and cuts out the middlemen, so you're paying
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: for quality, not brand markup. Everything is designed to last
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: and make getting dressed easy. Let's see. Love the sweaters.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: Love the pants.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 8: Yep.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: Also has some t-shirts from there.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 10: Oh, yeah.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: Great sweatshirts.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: They're all super comfy. They look great. And... They last
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: a long time, too, which is great. Refresh your wardrobe
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: with Quince. Go to quince.com slash crooked for free shipping
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too. Go to qince.com
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: slash crooked for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash crooked.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 9: My guest today is Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota and running
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 9: to fill Senator Tina Smith's U.S. Senate seat, Peggy Flanagan.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 9: Great to meet you.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 12: Thanks so much for having me.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: Great to be here. Yeah, good to be here.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 9: So you're running in a primary. We've extended an invitation
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 9: to your opponent, Representative Craig. So we'll double back with
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 9: listeners when that happens. So I want to start with
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 9: some national stuff, some Senate-specific stuff, and then dig into
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 9: some Minnesota-focused questions, if that's cool. A lot of grassroots voters,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 9: a lot of Democrats, feel like Democrats in Congress are
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 9: not fighting hard enough against the Trump administration. I'm sure
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 9: you hear this all the time. The pushback you hear
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 9: from the House side is like, hey, we have no power.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 9: I think the senators would probably say, you know, we
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 9: just shut down the government for like 40 plus days
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 9: last year. DHS is shut down now. Maybe that's a
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 9: lot of fighting back in their book. Where do you
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 9: stand on this debate? Are they fighting hard enough?
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 12: Well, I think, you know, what I'm hearing from folks
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 12: as we're traveling across the state is that people are
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 12: sick and tired of Democrats fighting from a defensive crouch
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 12: or governing by sternly worded letter is something we hear
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 12: a lot about. And I think You know, fighting back
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 12: can take on a lot of different tactics. I think,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 12: you know, Senate Democrats leading on the shutdown really mattered, right?
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 12: Especially after what we saw in the state of Minnesota
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 12: with ICE, which I'm sure we'll talk about a little
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 12: bit more. But I also think it means being in
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 12: the community, listening directly to people about how they are
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 12: experiencing the Trump administration. what they want you to fight
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 12: for when you're there, but also using your platform and
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 12: then getting out into the streets. I think that also matters, right?
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 12: We had over 50,000 people marching in downtown Minneapolis to
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 12: show solidarity, but also to speak up. So there are
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 12: lots of tools in our toolbox, but I just think
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 12: people want to know that you're there for them, that
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 12: you're fighting for them, And especially right now, when we
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 12: see the influence of corporate PAC money, billionaires who have
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 12: probably the biggest seat at the table in our politics,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 12: I think regular folks just want to be heard and
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 12: want to know that when Dems come back into power,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 12: they are going to throw down on behalf of the
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 12: American people.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 9: Yeah, I definitely want to ask you a lot about
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 9: the ICE and CBP occupation of lots of Minnesota and
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 9: how inspiring the response was. But a couple more things. So,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 9: you know, another flashpoint I think you hear with the
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 9: left and center, I mean, a lot of places is
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 9: whether Chuck Schumer should continue to be the leader of
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 9: the Democrats, whether Senate minority leader or hopefully Senate majority leader.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 9: Do you support Schumer's.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: Keeping that job?
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 12: I'll say this. I feel the same way about Chuck
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 12: Schumer that he feels about me.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 13: Uncommitted.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: What does uncommitted mean?
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: I've heard you say that before.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 12: Yeah. I think we should have a vote.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 9: Is this Minnesota Nice saying no?
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 12: This is Minnesota Nice, but it's saying I think we
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 12: need a progressive champion to lead the Senate Democrats. And
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 12: I think there's an example of a lot of leaders
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 12: who are part of the group called the Fight Club.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 12: I'm sure you've heard of this group, right? The number
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 12: one rule of Fight Club is that we're not supposed
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 12: to talk about it, but right, we're going to talk
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 12: about it. So that's Senators Warren, Smith, Sanders, Heinrich, Markey, Merkley, and,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 12: you know, this group, and Van Hollen. And this group
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 12: of folks, I think, are pushing back and are not
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 12: part of the Democratic establishment and are really looking for
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 12: those progressive fighters. I think that's what we need. And
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 12: I think that's what we're hearing from folks all across
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 12: the country who are ready for more. And, you know,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 12: So am I.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 9: It's interesting to hear you say, focus on sort of
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 9: the policy argument, because I think the other argument you
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 9: hear is generational.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 9: And there's, I think, ongoing frustration that we had this
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 9: long sort of tortured discussion about Joe Biden's age and voters,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 9: I think, pretty resoundingly told us he was too old
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 9: for another term. And yet the lessons learned have not
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 9: translated to the Senate. Do you think there should be
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 9: an age limit or term limits for the Senate?
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 12: I think what we need are progressive fighters. And I
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 12: think there are folks of all different ages who can
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 12: take on that role. But what I'll also say is,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 12: you know, we don't have enough moms with kids under
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 12: the age of 18 serving in the Senate. There's only four.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 12: And boy, can you tell by the kind of, you know,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 12: lack of policies that have to do with, you know,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 12: paid family medical leave, child care. making sure that kids
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 12: have access to health insurance.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 9: They don't know who Ms.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 12: Rachel is. They don't know who Ms. Rachel is. That matters.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 9: Absolutely.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 12: I mean, and if you haven't been moved by an
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 12: episode of Bluey, what are you doing serving in the Senate? No,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 12: but I think that that matters that our elected officials
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 12: accurately reflect the communities they seek to represent, right? And
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 12: so I think it matters that we have more young
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 12: people who are serving in the Senate. I am not
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 12: running to make history, but I think it matters that
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 12: we can elect the first Native American woman ever to
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 12: serve in the U.S. Senate. That's healthy for democracy and
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 12: it's good. And I think now as we're seeing these
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 12: primary races across the country, that's good for us. It
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 12: is good for the party. It's good for democracy overall.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 12: And having people feel excited and engaged about politics, That's
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 12: something we should all want right now, especially as we've
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 12: got Donald Trump in the White House every day. I mean, yeah, just, yes,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 12: just doing really, and this is my Minnesotan coming out,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 12: really interesting things, right?
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 9: Interesting Donald.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 9: Crypto's interesting.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 12: Yeah, that's right.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, and.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 12: I just think it's an exciting time for our party if...
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 12: We choose, right, to lean into that excitement and not,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 12: you know, get caught up with the status quo. We
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 12: are seeing it everywhere that people are demanding more. They
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 12: want more. They want folks who understand what it's like, right,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 12: to try to stretch 20 bucks through the end of
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 12: the month. And frankly, I think if we had more
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 12: people in the Senate who knew what that was like,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 12: we wouldn't have passed this big, ugly bill. So this
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 12: is our opportunity, and I think... we can reinvigorate the U.S.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 12: Senate and the Democrats who serve there.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 9: You could certainly use some invigoration.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 12: If you haven't worked there.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 9: After Watergate, after Nixon, there was a wave of government reform.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 9: It didn't just You know, that scandal didn't just take
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 9: down the president, but it led to this fundamental reshaping
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 9: of American politics because people woke up.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: And said, oh, that was bad.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 9: Let's not do that again. Do you have a vision
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 9: for what a post-Trump set of reforms could or should
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 9: look like that the Senate should be hopefully working on
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 9: right now?
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 12: We'll say a couple of things. I think there are
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 12: too many folks who think, oh, once Trump's out of office,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 12: somehow everything will be OK.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 9: Learn that one the hard way.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: Right. Absolutely.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 12: And we'll go back to, you know, sunshine and rainbows.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 12: We have to be, I think, very clear about what
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 12: the consequences need to be for Donald Trump and for
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 12: folks in his administration.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 12: Investigations, criminal charges. What we have been through in Minnesota,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 12: there has to be some kind of reckoning. We also
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 12: have seen as Donald Trump, you know, one of his
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 12: first moves once he got back into office was getting
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 12: rid of 17 inspectors general, right, and the very people
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 12: who police fraud. He has enriched himself. He has enriched,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 12: you know, his family members. I think, you know, one
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 12: of the biggest things we need to do is make
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 12: sure that you can't get rich off of serving in
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 12: public office.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 9: You're not going to bet on whether we're going to
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 9: depose dictators in Venezuela and stuff?
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 12: I mean, it's not my thing. I think, you know,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 12: Kelshi is another interesting thing that exists. And we shouldn't
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 12: be betting on our politics. But I would say, you know,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 12: holding these folks accountable, making sure that you can't enrich yourself.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 12: And then I think we have to look at reforms
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 12: around the Supreme Court as well. And just people have
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 12: to trust the government again. And when I think about
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 12: the opportunity to get in there, I think we will
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 12: take back the House. I think we have a real
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 12: opportunity to take back the Senate. And then everyone has
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 12: to be really clear what their job is, right? You
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 12: got to be in role. So what is this senator
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 12: working on?
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: What is this.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 12: A base of support for the reforms, for the policies
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 12: that we want to move, so that once, you know,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 12: we get a new president in there, God willing, in 2028,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 12: thanks for knocking on wood, that we are then ready
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 12: to go and rebuild. Because what we watched Elon Musk and,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 12: you know, his doge bros do to this government, we
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 12: have to rebuild. And we have to do so with
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 12: a lot of intention. So it is pushing for the
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 12: policies that Americans want to be able to afford their
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 12: lives and making sure that this authoritarianism that is just
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 12: galloped into the White House and into Washington can never
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 12: happen again.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 9: Do you think Democrats should get rid of the filibuster?
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 12: Oh, this is the tricky one, right? Because right now
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 12: it's pretty helpful. But yes, I do. Because there are
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 12: so many things that have gotten, you know, stopped, right?
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 12: Good stuff, right? And I don't want, you know, Kyrsten
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 12: Sinema or Joe Manchin-esque people to be able to, you know,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 12: stop progress because they're, you know, bought and paid for
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 12: by big corporations, right?
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell. Yeah.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 9: What about the party saying, as a party, we're not
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 9: going to take corporate PAC money, we're not going to
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 9: take lobbyist money? Is that naive? Is that dooming ourselves
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 9: to being outspent in every election? Like, what kind of
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 9: campaign finance reforms you think are appropriate?
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 12: I mean, I think the fact that corporate PACs and
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 12: billionaires are running the show in Washington is a fantastic
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 12: reason why we shouldn't take that money. I mean, for
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 12: me personally, I have made that decision in my campaign,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 12: and I think it really matters.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 9: Added a lot for Obama in 07, I think.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 12: Yeah, I mean... Really did.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 9: It was a differentiator.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 12: Well, because people get it, right? People understand it. And
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 12: let me tell you, I knew the corporations had a
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 12: lot of power in Washington. It wasn't until I ran
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 12: for Senate that I actually understood just how much. And so.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 9: What did you learn in that process that kind of
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 9: gave you that new window?
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 12: I mean, it's just looking at.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 12: How folks are like, oh, well, that's too much, right?
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 12: Or when you say like, I'm for Medicare for all, right?
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 12: People are like, oh, but there's so many folks in
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 12: the health insurance industry. And there are people, a librarian
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 12: in Canby, Minnesota, who's paying a $ 16, 000 deductible and just
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 12: paid five bucks, or sorry, 500 bucks for a five-minute
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 12: med check, right? Like that's That's real. And so I
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 12: just think that this is a root of why we
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 12: are where we are, that big corporations, billionaires have their
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 12: thumb on the scale in our politics in a real way.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 12: And what I would say is that I think this
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 12: is the biggest contrast between myself and my primary opponent,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 12: Congresswoman Craig. This is where, you know, big oil, crypto,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 12: big pharma, APAC is, you know, they're all going to
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 12: come in to this race. And for me, I can
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 12: sleep at night because I'm not beholden to anybody but
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 12: Minnesotans and I have integrity. But we also see in
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 12: the Democratic Party as a whole, we should be the
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 12: folks who are fighting to protect the environment, not taking
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 12: money from big oil. We should be the folks who
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 12: are anti-war, right? Not snuggling up, you know.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 7: To.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 12: AIPAC, who is a-okay with this war in Iran and
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 12: what we see happening in Lebanon and Gaza, and the
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 12: majority of Americans oppose it. And, you know, when we
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 12: see these big corporations and corporate interests who are keeping
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 12: people who are making incredibly low-wage jobs who are struggling,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 12: Democrats should be the folks who are fighting against that,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 12: not saying, please contribute to to our campaigns. Because I think,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 12: you know, it's Tommy, what you just said, like people
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 12: get it. You know, it's pretty disingenuous to say, you know,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 12: I'm going to, you know, regulate corporate, you know, cryptocurrency
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 12: on one hand and then have your other hand outstretched
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 12: and be like, but also wink, wink, nudge, nudge. If
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 12: you could pay for my campaign, that would be great.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 12: People are so much smarter than that. And so that,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 12: you know, and I think that's coming for us, right?
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 12: What we saw In the state of Illinois, in their
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 12: primary that they just had, my friend and my sister,
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 12: fellow lieutenant governor, Julianna Stratton, crypto spent $ 10 million in
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 12: that race. APAC spent millions, right? And, you know, I
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 12: know that they're going to come into Minnesota too. But
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 12: what I also know is that people are starting to
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 12: understand why this matters, right? I've been endorsed by End
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 12: Citizens United in this race. And I think the best
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 12: way to get big money out of our politics is
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 12: to demonstrate that you can run powerful grassroots campaigns that
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 12: are about the many and not the money, and you
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 12: can still win.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 9: You mentioned AIPAC and the big fight in the Democratic
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 9: Party about U.S. support for Israel. Does that lead you
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 9: to feel like we should be cutting off military aid
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 9: to Israel? For example, I know Bernie Sanders has a
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 9: bunch of votes this week to try to cut off
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 9: specific funding of weapons systems? Where do you land on that?
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 12: So if I was in the Senate right now, I'd
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 12: be joining Senator Sanders and voting in support of those resolutions.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 12: And let me tell you that this was, you know,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 12: a year ago when he introduced the resolutions with regards
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 12: to offensive weapon sales to Israel. I was asked how
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 12: I would have voted for that. And I said, how
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 12: I would have voted on it, and I thought I
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 12: would have voted alongside my Senator Tina Smith and Senator
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 12: Amy Klobuchar in support of it, because the same values
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 12: that I have behind making sure that kids can eat
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 12: breakfast and lunch at school, right, for free, those are
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 12: the same values behind supporting those resolutions. The suffering that
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 12: we have seen is too much.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 9: Yeah, it's off the charts.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 12: Yeah, if there's tools in our toolbox... that we can
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 12: use we should use them.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 9: Agreed on that point um let's turn to minnesota so
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 9: some of minnesota's neighbors iowa and wisconsin have drifted right
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 9: uh iowa pretty far right in the trump era minnesota
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 9: has not why i.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 12: Mean i think we really care about each other and
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 12: you know we uh come from the state of Senator
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 12: Paul Wellstone, and everybody knows, right, the bumper sticker, we
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 12: all do better when we all do better, which is,
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 12: you know, a famous quote from Paul. And I think
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 12: people of all parties believe that in our state. We
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 12: really care about fairness and looking out for our neighbor,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 12: and I think that's what you saw on display in
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 12: the response to Operation Metro Surge. But I really think
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 12: that that's what it's about, that folks just think you
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 12: should be able to live a good life, you know,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 12: make your own choices and just feel successful.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 9: Bottle up whatever you got in the water over there.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 9: You mentioned a couple times, I mean, Trump and his
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 9: cronies have spent a lot of time attacking Minnesota, a
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 9: shocking amount of time, right? Tim Walz gets targeted all
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 9: the time. ICE and CBP descended on the state. There's
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 9: this obsessive focus on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, on the Somali community,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 9: allegations of fraud. Did it surprise you that Minnesota like
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 9: kind of had the eye of Soran trained on it
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 9: like this? And like, what is the impact of those
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 9: attacks been on People just live there, try to live
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 9: their lives.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 12: So I'd say a couple of things. One, you know,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 12: fraud of any kind is completely unacceptable, right? In Minnesota,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 12: if you commit fraud, you're going to be, you know,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 12: prosecuted for it. But I also want to say that
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 12: if this was really about fraud from the Trump administration,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 12: they would have sent 3,000 forensic accountants and not, you know, 3,000
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 12: IC agents. Yeah, exactly. That's right. And so the impact
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 12: that this has had on our state, I know that
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 12: your listeners or your viewers probably watched the news and
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 12: saw it and were horrified, but what people need to
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 12: know is that it was so much worse in person.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 12: The trauma, the violence, the chaos, the things that people experienced,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 12: I guess I have a couple stories that I'd just
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 12: like to share with you. My little auntie, who is
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 12: in her 70s, was forced off the road by ICE.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 12: They surrounded her vehicle. And she's this cute little grandma.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 12: She rolled down her window. And she's like, hey, fellas,
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 12: how can I help you? And they said, where are
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 12: you going? And she had a.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: Program.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 12: She was like, I literally was just leaving a funeral.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 12: you know, this is the program for the funeral. And
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 12: she's like, am I free to go? And they're like, yeah,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 12: go ahead. But she has a bumper sticker on her
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 12: car that says Black Lives Matter. And she's like, I'm
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 12: pretty sure that was targeted.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: What authority did they have to pull someone over in
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: the first place?
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: It's crazy.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 12: And this happened all over the state, right? We go to,
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 12: I'm Catholic, so it's been a Weird week. Weird week
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 12: for Catholics, but I have to tell you, I've never
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 12: been more proud to be Catholic in my entire life.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 9: It is weird that your suitcase depicts you as Jesus.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 9: Your staff thought it was normal.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 12: No, I'm a doctor.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm a doctor.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 9: Have you heard the theory that he thought he was
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 9: told to say it was doctored, but then he said,
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 9: I'm a doctor?
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 12: I believe that theory 100%. I saw it on Twitter,
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 12: but I buy it.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. I think that's probably true. Yes, but... Run off
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: the road. Your aunt gets run over by your grandma.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 12: Well, you also hear stories, right, of individuals who were
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 12: just stopped in the street simply because of the color
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 12: of their skin. I'm Ojibwe. I'm Native American. We have
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 12: a large urban Native population. And there were a lot
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 12: of Native folks who were literally wearing their tribal IDs
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 12: around their neck. I mean, it's outrageous. And the children, right, Liam,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 12: Liam Conejo Ramos, that the Trump administration detained in Texas,
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 12: they're now back, but they're now being targeted aggressively for deportation.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 12: The children, I talked to a second grade teacher who said,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 12: the biggest thing I have to figure out every day
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 12: is you know, how I manage through children who are
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 12: crying at different times throughout class. Like, it's horrific. And
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 12: we go to a parish in North Minneapolis, and we've
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 12: got a lot of mixed status families there. And church
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 12: was so empty. And on Christmas, there may be 40
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 12: people It's usually hard to get a seat, right? And
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 12: so throughout the occupation, we fed over 350 families. That
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 12: work continues. People are afraid to leave their homes. They've
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 12: been impacted financially in ways that I don't know if
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 12: they'll ever recover. And what I can't get over is
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 12: that there are going to be some children in our
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 12: state who have an ACE score, an Adverse Childhood Experience score,
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 12: simply because there were federal agents in their neighborhood. I
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 12: don't have another word for it, but I am running
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 12: to avenge Minnesota and bring justice for our people. The
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 12: drawdown has occurred. ICE still has a presence. They're more
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 12: insidious now. But this certainly didn't just focus on the
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 12: Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: Paul.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 12: We were traveling across the state. We had a statewide tour.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 12: And at multiple events, people's phones went off because they
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 12: were all part of a group that was doing rapid response,
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 12: where ICE was at a daycare center, where they were
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 12: at a construction site or a restaurant. And so I
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 12: think people are starting to try to get back to normal,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 12: but this has changed. This has changed us. And on
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 12: Palm Sunday, it was packed and there were kids crying
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 12: and laughing and toys dropping on the floor. And it
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 12: was like a lot of chaos and it was totally beautiful.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, another good kid cast.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 12: Yeah, like it just, so folks are coming back, but
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 12: this is the financial impact of this on our state,
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 12: the emotional impact, the impact on mental health, the economy.
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 12: It is unforgivable. And so what the federal government laid
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 12: at our doorstep, they have to repair and heal and restore.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 9: You know, you think you spoke incredibly powerfully to the
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 9: impossible to quantify emotional impact. I mean, for every story
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 9: like Liam, there's other stories that we all read of
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 9: like kids who were just didn't go to school for
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 9: three months, hiding in their houses, you know, and like
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 9: how we ever fix that, you know, like how we
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 9: ever be able to help those kids readjust and not
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 9: be afraid. You also mentioned the just pure economic impact.
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 9: I mean, I read that businesses in Minneapolis and St.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 9: Paul were reporting, $ 300 million in losses, how do they
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 9: recover from that? Or how are you guys able to
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 9: help them recover from that?
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 12: You know, I governed under COVID. And we at least
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 12: had more of a partnership than an adversary and had resources.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 12: And now, right? It's the folks who caused this chaos
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 12: and violence and killed two Minnesotans, right, who are supposed
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 12: to be the ones who are our partners in recovery.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 12: I will tell you that we have watched Minnesotans step
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 12: up in a major way. Mutual aid, People who are
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 12: standing outside of daycares and schools, you know, in their neighborhoods,
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 12: there's literally people who stand outside of our parish every
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 12: Sunday just to make sure that we can worship safely.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 12: The financial contributions have been incredible. Philanthropy has responded. But
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 12: it's not enough. And at the state level, you know,
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 12: there are some things that we can do. I am
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 12: hopeful that there will be some rental assistance that we'll
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 12: be able to get past this legislative session. But we
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 12: have divided government or a tie in our house. And
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 12: so that will be difficult. But the recovery is going
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 12: to be long. And I think this, again, is one
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 12: of the reasons why, you know, we need folks in
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 12: Congress and Senate who understand the need for investment in
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 12: this recovery. We can start by clawing back the $ 75
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 12: billion that was given to ICE to terrorize Minnesotans. It's
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 12: a good.
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: Place to start. I like that idea.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 9: I mean, as you know better than I do, Minnesota
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 9: has a reputation, a well-earned one, for being a generous
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 9: place to live because of all the social services. And
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 9: as I mentioned now, I mean, the Minnesotans are facing
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 9: all these accusations of fraud, maybe up to a billion
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 9: dollars worth of fraud. Republicans are using those allegations, those
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 9: instances to try to undercut the entire concept of a
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 9: welfare state, right? To suggest that all governments are corrupt
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 9: and we're wasting your money and why don't we just
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 9: give a big tax cut to everybody, hint the billionaires,
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 9: and claw it all back, right? How do you think
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 9: we can fight back on those kind of attacks and
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 9: sort of like the kind of governance that you and
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 9: I believe in?
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 12: For sure. Well, I'd say a couple of things. One,
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 12: you know, Like I said, the fraud is completely unacceptable.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 12: I'm a recovering executive director, and I will tell you,
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 12: of Children's Defense Fund Minnesota. So people stealing money from
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 12: the most vulnerable folks in our state makes me pretty angry.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 12: And so, you know, the governor and the legislature have
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 12: put in place policies to stop fraud, to prevent fraud.
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 12: And I still have hope that this legislative session, there'll
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 12: be more that's able to get done. Republicans have voted
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 12: down several measures, right, that would be helpful when it
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 12: came to combating fraud. And so I hope that their
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 12: better angels will arrive and they will vote in favor
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 12: of some of these policies because.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 2: I think- Better angels like J.D.
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 7: Vance?
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 9: You want him to come?
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 12: Our theologian, right?
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 7: J.D.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 8: Vance.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 9: You mentioned going to church a few times. You've met
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 9: What do you think of J.D. Vance saying the Pope
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 9: shouldn't weigh in on war?
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 12: If the Pope was mad at me and this Pope specifically,
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 12: I would die. And like if my own priest, right,
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 12: was mad at me, I would feel like just or
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 12: disappointed in me. Like that would be the worst. But
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 12: if the Pope was mad at me, I would just
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 12: be like and pack it in. Like I'd be like,
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 12: that's it.
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 2: I got to go.
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 9: I mean, we've we've all accused, I think, J.D. Vance
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 9: of sort of selling his political soul to get into
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 9: Donald Trump's graces and do anything for power.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: But he's really.
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 12: Going down here. But I think like speaking of J.D. Vance,
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 12: of someone who grew up on the margins and is
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 12: completely at his brain sucked out and forgotten where he
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 12: comes from.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 12: This for me, I think, is also really important for
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 12: us to talk about why these programs matter.
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 13: Right.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 12: I'm a kid. who moved to the community of St.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 12: Louis Park, where I still live with my family. My
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 12: mom had a Section 8 housing voucher, and that's how
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 12: she did it. That's how we paid the rent. SNAP,
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 12: which back in the day we called food stamps, was
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 12: how we kept food on the table. I was that
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 12: kid with the different colored lunch ticket. And Medicaid, or
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 12: what's known as medical assistance in Minnesota, was what kept
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 12: me alive. I missed a lot of school. I was
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 12: sometimes in the hospital more than I was out in
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 12: elementary school. And so I am alive because of those programs.
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 12: And when I think about, you know, my mom, she
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 12: worked so hard. And she went back to school and
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 12: was able to do so because of the child care
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 12: assistance program. She went back to school. She got her
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 12: certificate in phlebotomy. She's a professional vampire, as we like
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 12: to say. And I remember when she walked across the
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 12: stage And she got her diploma. She was in like
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 12: a bright blue cap and gown. And it felt like
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 12: I was walking across that stage. All of those investments
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 12: helped to lift my family towards the middle class. And
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 12: now I get to pay that forward and pay it
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 12: back in service. That's what we have to talk about, right?
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 12: And for children, our seniors, people who don't make enough
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 12: money to qualify, right, for, you know, or get health
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 12: care through their employer. We can't forget about people. And that,
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 12: I think, is what I hope still makes us Minnesotans
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 12: and still makes us Americans is that we care about
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 12: each other and that we're going to wrap our arms
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 12: around you when you need help and then you're going
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 12: to pay that back. And that, I think, is one
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 12: of the things that's just completely missing from this conversation.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 9: Just hearing you talk, I hear, I can tell you
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 9: worked for Paul Wellstone. I mean, odds are you did
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 9: if you're in Minnesota politics, right? For those who don't know,
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 9: Paul Wellstone was, I mean, truly one of the more,
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 9: most inspiring people in political life when I was sort
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 9: of like coming up in politics and working on the Hill.
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 9: I desperately wanted to work for him. He was killed tragically.
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 9: Can you just talk about Paul Wellstone? What he meant
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 9: to you, like kind of how he shaped your career
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 9: in the course of Minnesota politics?
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 12: I mean, I exist because of Paul Wellstone. I was
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 12: literally driving past the Wellstone for Senate office in 2002,
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 12: my senior year of college at the University of Minnesota.
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 12: And I was like, you know what? I like Paul Wellstone. Like,
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 12: I'm just going to stop.
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 7: Really?
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 2: Just popped in?
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 12: Just popped in. And a guy named, now I know,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 12: is my friend Chris, was like, hey, are you here
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 12: to volunteer? And I was like, oh, I guess. Sure, okay.
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 12: And I stuffed envelopes, which isn't really a thing we
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 12: do anymore. Oh, I remember that. But, yeah, I stuffed
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 12: envelopes for two hours with, like, complete strangers. And I
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 12: was like, this is amazing. And I went back every
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 12: single day. And so I started off doing, you know,
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 12: tasks that just needed to be done and then ended
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 12: up– leading our urban native organizing work, which, you know,
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 12: as you know, is how things happen on campaigns, right?
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 9: Suddenly you're running the thing.
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 12: Exactly.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: If you're good, here's more work.
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 12: That's right. And so, you know, I was so moved
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 12: by that experience and really just like seeing real people
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 12: and who, and everybody felt like that's our guy. Paul's
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 12: our guy. He's our senator. If it's the Native community,
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 12: the Somali community, folks up on the Iron Range, everybody
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 12: claimed him. And it was because he spent time with
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 12: people all over the state and really listened to them
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 12: and met them and cared for them. And that is,
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 12: when we talk about politics the Wellstone way, that's what
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 12: it's about. It's about making sure that you're meeting people
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 12: where they're at. And that the policies that you push
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 12: for are directly informed by the people who are most impacted.
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 12: And I remember this moment when, after he had died,
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 12: and Walter Mondale, former vice president, was running in his place.
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 12: And so we had to hand make a bunch of signs.
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 12: And I'd mark her all over my arm, and it
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 12: was like hot in the back room. And I looked
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 12: around the room, and it was full of people from
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 12: all different walks of life.
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, this.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 12: This is what I'm supposed to do. And I didn't
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 12: think at the time at all that it meant run
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 12: for political office. I just thought it meant like I'm
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 12: going to be part of campaigns and organizing work. And
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 12: then I was taken under the wing of a lot
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 12: of Wellstone campaign folks and worked at Wellstone Action for
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 12: almost a decade afterwards, training people, tens of thousands of
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 12: people across the country to run for political office.
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 7: That's great.
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 9: If people want to have their own Wellstone moment working
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 9: for you, where do they go?
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 2: How can they do it?
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 12: Folks can visit PeggyFlanagan.com. We'd love to have you on
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 12: Team Peggy. It's going to take all of us.
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 9: Well, thank you for coming in. It's great to talk
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 9: to you.
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 12: Thanks so much.
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Peggy Flanagan for
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: coming on. Dan will be back in the feed on
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: Sunday with a conversation with David Pakman. Have a good weekend, everybody.
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 3: Bye, everyone.
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com slash
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Also,
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: please consider leaving us a review. That helps boost this
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: episode and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: America is a Crooked Media production. Our producer is Saul Rubin.
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: senior producer. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: is our head of news and politics. Jordan Cantor is
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: Charlotte Landis. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team.
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, Carol Pelleviv,
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: David Tolles, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.